Runelords 28.0 - The Battle For Sandpoint
With a plan in place, a massive organized effort was undertaken to prepare the town of Sandpoint for invasion. Defenses were laid, spells were prepared and the village was evacuated to ships and to the hinterlands. The empty town was left defended by the adventurers, Quint, Ameiko, the sheriff, Shalelu, and a force of thirty men, comprised of the town guards and volunteers who knew how to use a bow. Everything was made ready, and then there was nothing to do but wait. It was morning when the attack came. Huge rocks were launched on the defensive wall beside the church. Luna and Aldern jumped down and rushed out into the woods to foil the attack, while the remaining guards sounded the alarm. The others, who had been sleeping at the time, roused and rushed out. Most went to their stations near the two bridges and the lighthouse. One of the bridge teams saw incoming monsters, two giant tree-like creatures wielding fiery swords, fording the river. They rang their alarm, and Ameiko, Eamon, Quint and Virgil went to help them. In the woods, Luna and Aldern found three more treants hurling boulders at the wall. They engaged them; Luna was badly hurt, but Aldern stood toe-to-toe with one of the sword-wielding trees and fared very well. Luna then ran back to the wall to tell the guards, now joined by Khyr, the sheriff and Shalelu, what was happening. The rocks started up again, and Luna and Khyr ran back to help Aldern. Two of the treants were destroyed and the third retreated, demoralized by Khyr's magic. The two other treants forded the river and made it to shore; the forces assembled managed to destroy the first, but the second lit a nearby building on fire. As people scrambled to deal with the treants, a terrible roar caught everyone's attention: a red drake had descended with a rider by the lighthouse, killing all of the stationed guards there with its fiery breath and claws. Eamon, Quint and most of the defenders by the wall dashed to the lighthouse, while the rest either continued to fight the last treant or remain defending the wall. As the second river-fording treant was destroyed and efforts switched to putting out the fire, Virgil caught sight of others beginning to cross the river downstream: another treant that looked much more human than the others, two men dressed in the murderous cult robes seen in Medinipur, and the lamia Xanthia herself. Virgil ran towards them, joining the guard detail by the second bridge. The drake set Quint's house on fire, but the wizard extinguished it with a spell before too much damage could be done. Most of the forces began to harry the drake, which had dropped its rider off by the lighthouse before it began to swoop over the town. Khyr, Luna, Aldern, Shalelu, Hemlock and ten guards ran from block to block, shooting at the drake when they had an opening while dodging its deadly fire. Eamon and Quint saw the rider dive into the well. Knowing there was no other escape from the sunken lighthouse, Quint began to lay down barrier spells that would prevent the woman from exiting through the well opening. Eamon stood ready with his sword, prepared to strike. Meanwhile, Virgil attempted to magically confuse and command the intruders, but the lamia and treant were both immune to his charms. The cultists weren't so lucky and began to act erratically, bumbling about on the far shore. However, the lamia and the treant both made landing. Virgil was quickly proven inferior at hand-to-hand than the lamia and the treant, who the lamia gleefully admitted was at one point Lamar of the Black Arrows. Failing against the lamia's Suggestion spell, Virgil dropped his sword and fled, running to the interior of the town. Ameiko and the guards of the first bridge ran interference, drawing the attentions of the lamia and Lamar while the second bridge guards took shots at the confused cultists, eventually felling both and revealing their natures not as humans, but as the same clay golems that the adventurers had found in Aldern's townhouse. Now some distance away from his foes, Virgil warned the others of the lamia and Lamar while joining the chase after the drake. Having been shot and badly wounded, however, the drake seemed to decide that this invasion was not worth its life; it flew off, leaving the town be. Meanwhile, Eamon and Quint had the woman, ostensibly a druid considering the spells at her disposal, trapped. She had shifted to the form of a large gorilla in order to carry a huge chunk of stone out of the well, but was foiled in her escape. She attempted to burn her way through the barriers, but it was no good. Instead, she changed her plan: shifting to a giant aquatic reptile, she attempted to bash a new doorway out of the cliffside, allowing her to escape with the rock. Quint and Eamon were not about to let her get away. They climbed along the side of the wall and continued their attack, hitting her with spells and thrown weapons. When it seemed she might make it, Eamon leaped down with sword raised, hacking away at her as he fell to the ocean below. The druid screamed, brutally injured; shifting one last time, she took the form of a sparrow, fleeing for her life and abandoning the stone she had come for. It fell to the ocean, nearly crushing Eamon on its way. With the drake gone, the defenders rushed to where Virgil led them in order to repel what seemed to be the last of the invaders. Chasing their trail into a storefront, Virgil found the lamia standing proudly inside, while in the far corner, the sylvan Lamar choked the life out of Ameiko. Virgil threatened the lamia, telling her that it was her comrade Lucretia that had warned them and sold her out, foiling her plans for Sandpoint. The lamia was not surprised and seemed to care little: she had to succeed here, or her life was forfeit anyhow. She glared at him, and a magical effect rendered him petrified. Luna and Aldern pushed past the stone statue that was Virgil as they both moved to attack the lamia, hitting her with all they had. Khyr joined them, rushing to try and get Ameiko out of Lamar' hands. He succeeded in making him drop her, but it was apparent that she was unconscious and had been drained of life. The three fought brutally against their foes: the lamia was slain by a combination of Aldern and Luna's efforts. Still fighting Lamar, Luna and Khyr began to yell at each other, upset by the heat of battle. Luna turned her attentions towards Ameiko, but it seemed she had already died. Unwilling to slay Lamar, as he was still wanted by the dryad in the Shimmerglen, the group managed to tangle him in ropes and spells, tying him up tightly. He seemed to have no true thought any more: a zombie. As the bustle of combat wound down, Virgil regained life spontaneously: the spell had only been temporary. With their enemies slain or repelled, the defenders turned to the numerous fires that had been lit by the treants and the drake. A seventh treant had apparently attacked one of the manors outside of town, but since it had been ignored the house was ransacked and burned nearly to the ground. The town hall, the church, the sheriff's office, and a few homes and businesses had all taken some damage. Sixteen defenders had died that morning. The town was saved, at a cost. Category:Rise of the Runelords